Polixeni Papapetrou THE GHILLIES Polixeni Papapetrou Hattah Man and Hattah Woman 120 x 120 cm, pigment ink print 4 HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT Ghillie is derived from the Scottish Gaelic word they might be about boys because Papapetrou In Wonderland (2004), the character is the literary Landscape becomes an actor to merge. Similarly Magma Man literally emerges gille meaning lad or servant. Historically it was came to know of ghillie suits through the younger Alice. In Between Worlds (2009) they are humans from the rocks; he is magma and the magma Over time, the locations of Papapetrou’s a term used to refer to a man or a boy who, as of her much loved children. Familiar with the with the heads of animals. In The Dreamkeepers is he. The titles give it away too, both man and photography have shifted from pure black a minion, attended a Highland chief on hunting suits from the video game Call of Duty, when he (2012) they are old people who are both scrub, both Mallee and man. And of course, (Authority 2000), to panto backdrops (Fairy Tales or fishing expeditions. Scottish gamekeepers spotted one in an archery store, Solomon wanted grotesquely hyper-real and deeply artificial. how to live as people who can both be in and 2004–6) and then, from 2006, to ‘real’ spaces. may have developed the ghillie suit as a form of it. The suit promised invisibility and status, and sustain place is the challenge of a world ravaged We might see all of these images as concerned Even in these more recent images, and even when hunting camouflage and A History of the Military he wanted his mother to photograph him in the beyond its limits; how to become Hattah Man and with and exploring how appearance relates to iconic and grand locations are used, the landscape Sniper claims that its martial use can be traced to suit. In Papapetrou’s snapshots of a ghillied-up Woman. identity or how dressing up is not only play but plays a traditional supporting role as a backdrop the Lovat Scouts, a Scottish Highland regiment Solomon in the bush at Studley Park in Melbourne about trying on a role for size and fit. But with subordinated to Papapetrou’s mesmerizing figures. that became the British Army’s first sniper unit in it’s being tested to see if it works as he lays down Disappearing from site The Ghillies we might equally take a lead from 1916. As if that isn’t enough, the Australian Army in the grass, crouches by a eucalypt and creeps In The Ghillies there is a new strategy. Here both Aristotle who, in writing about the theatre, This time, it’s no exaggeration to say that snipers call their camouflage outfits Yowie suits, through some casuarinas. landscape and figure are used differently. These understood character as always subordinate to the Papapetrou’s work has engaged deeply with referring to Australia’s version of the Yeti landscapes, mostly in the Mallee region where In The Ghillies things become very different. real thing, the plot. Ghillie suits are, after all, used major cultural themes both ancient and modern. or our, Giants From the Dreamtime. the states of Victoria, New South Wales and Even though they are about projecting deadly by men who want to make things happen even if I know this too in personal ways because I first South Australia abut, are familiar rather than So much in a single word! Not content to just force, here the suits unmake the delineation of it’s only winning a paint-ball shoot-out met Polixeni in a beautiful urban public garden, an picturesque. It’s a regular drought-stricken lake, offer us these vividly powerful images, even in both man and human. There is no proud curve on a corporate retreat. artificial and natural space fashioned by forces as a normal field where hay has just been baled, the title of this exhibition, Polixeni Papapetrou of a bicep or the taut outline of quadriceps as varied as horticulture and hydrology. She greeted Yet some of Papapetrou’s ghillies seem more fixed ordinary dune, and scrub and salt lake country. immediately makes us think about land and there was in Papapetrou’s Body Building (1997– everybody in that park with such warmth. To talk in place than ready to stalk or pounce. Ocean Man These are common places. servitude, masculinity and nature, colonialism 2003). There’s not even a silhouette. Grasstree with her there of rain and red sunrises, of family looks more like Lot’s Wife than a sniper on the and art, of birdsongs and dogs and blossoms, was and combat. Man seems overshadowed by what are merely And in The Ghillies the figures are changed too. move. Stump Man appears to be wondering if the to be in a place that was animated by her vitality xanthorrhoea. Dune Man appears as almost Susan Bright has noted that Papapetrou’s figures axe will swing for him next. Perhaps they are out as she was animated by a sparkling joy of being in Boys and men miniature despite the setting being not in the least are often hybrid. One of the features of hybrids of place, lost and far from home. Are they sick of the world. For those times and these remarkable Sometimes I think that adolescent boys have bit grand. Why is Salt Man rooted to the spot in such as, say, an animal/human hybrid, is that hiding and hunting? Have they stood up in order images that vibrate with intensity and thought, always had a hard slog through a fraught and the bright-pink crust of a dry lake as rain clouds the two forms exist separately both before and to wonder, ‘Where should I go?’ Which way are thank you Polixeni Papapetrou. roll in? after the creation of the hybrid as a third entity. focused interregnum of unbecoming boyhood these ghillies looking? Are they confident in their Here there is a different dynamic, almost as if the and becoming man. The excitement of newly camouflage and returning your gaze or do they Camouflage and character figures and the landscape have made each other. embodied physicality, of recognition and open have their back to you, gazing instead towards the Chris Healy futures co-exists so starkly with newly potent For some time, Papapetrou’s work has featured Associate Professor horizon? What is their story? In Study for Hattah Man and Hattah Woman the threats, responsibilities and opportunities to fail. what might loosely be called characters; often Cultural Studies outline of the ghillie suit against the cloud-filled The University of Melbourne characters who have a strong relationship to The Ghillies are not actually boys—beyond their sky is clear and distinct. Look carefully at the suit December 2012 performance or theatricality or archetypes. titles they are not self-evidently gendered—but against the landscape though and the two begin 6 Dune Man 120 x 120 cm, pigment ink print 8 Grasstree Man 120 x 120 cm, pigment ink print 10 Study for the Ghillies 70 x 105 cm, pigment ink print 12 Magma Man 120 x 120 cm, pigment ink print 14 Mallee Man 120 x 120 cm, pigment ink print 16 Ocean Man 120 x 120 cm, pigment ink print 18 Cloud Man 120 x 120 cm, pigment ink print 20 Scrub Man 120 x 120 cm, pigment ink print 22 Study for Hattah Man and Hattah Woman 70 x 105 cm, pigment ink print 24 Stump Man 120 x 120 cm, pigment ink print 26 Salt Man 120 x 120 cm, pigment ink print 28 Desert Man 120 x 120 cm, pigment ink print 30 Polixeni Papapetrou is an Australian photo-media Papapetrou holds a PhD from Monash University Papapetrou’s work is held in public collections in artist who explores relationships between history, (2007), an MA Media Arts from RMIT University Australia and the USA, corporate collections and contemporary culture, landscape, identity and (1997) and an LLB/ BA from the University of private collections in Australia, England, France, childhood. Her subject matter has included Elvis Melbourne (1984). She has held fifty solo Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium and the USA. Presley fans, Marilyn Monroe impersonators, drag exhibitions in Australia and internationally, and Her work appears in over 180 articles, citations queens, circus performers, wrestlers and body in 2011 the Australian Centre for Photography, and essays including Naomi Rosenblum, A History builders. Since 2002, Papapetrou has turned her Sydney, held her first retrospective. Papapetrou of Women Photographers, Abbeville Press, focus to childhood. She reflects upon numerous has participated at major international New York, 2010; Anne Marsh, Look: Australian interlocking facets of growing up, drawing upon photographic festivals including Fotográfica Photography Now, MacMillan Publishers, ideas of childhood from nineteenth-century Bogotá, Columbia, 2013; Photofestival Australia, 2010; Anne Higonnet, Presumed photography and literature (Dreamchild 2003 and Noorderlicht, The Netherlands, 2012; 3rd Innocence: Photographic Perspectives of Children, Wonderland 2004); exploring the power of dress- Biennale Photoquai at Le musée du quai Branly, De Cordova Museum, Massachusetts, 2008 ups (Phantomwise 2002); revisiting the experience Paris, 2011; Pingyao International Photography and Susan McCulloch, The New McCulloch’s of childhood and loss in colonial Australia Festival, Pingyao, China, 2010; Mesaic Fotografie, Encyclopedia of Australian Art, 2006. (Haunted Country 2006); reflecting upon a lost Bratislava, 2010; Athens Festival of Photography, freedom and the regulated lives of children today Athens, 2010; Seoul International Photography Papapetrou has received five grants from the (Games of Consequence 2008); looking at the Festival, Seoul, 2008 and ‘Le Mois de la Photo’, Australia Council for new work and three grants magical affinity that children have with animals Montreal, 2005.